What’s the first thing to work on if you want to improve your public speaking?

Short answer

It depends on what your current strengths and weaknesses are.

Long answer

If starting from scratch most people focus on things that relate to their delivery such as managing nerves, voice, gestures and other body language. Indeed, much of the public speaking and presentation training out there is focused on performance technique.

The problems with a technique-only approach are:

Most people don’t have the skills to properly apply the techniques

It ignores the substance of the message

When people ask me to evaluate their speech, they are often surprised if I start with how they can improve their content instead of their delivery.

Here’s why sometimes that’s where you need to start…

If there is a problem with WHAT you are saying, you have huge problems before you even get started.

The most common problems with content are:

Trying to cram too much information into the time allowed

Too much ‘cold’ information such as facts and figures, not balanced out with ‘warm’ content such as stories and examples to illustrate points

Lack of structure

No organised material – trying to ‘wing it’ and either rambling aimlessly or getting completely lost for words

The presenter actually has little knowledge of what they are speaking about

There are large gaping holes in the presenter’s argument

When the wheels fall off a presentation, it’s more often than not because the speaker has not connected with the content themselves, they haven’t considered their content from an audience point of view, or they straight up have no authority on the topic.

If you know what you are talking about and you have solid well-planned content, that in itself will give you more confidence when it comes to your delivery.

So, what about delivery?

Content and delivery are both important. However, so is the way you prioritise them…

If you are a paid professional speaker there is an expectation that you will deliver a polished performance. For everyone else, audiences will forgive a lot of flaws as long as you are giving them good information they can understand and relate to (content first got it?).

However if the flaws in delivery become a distraction from the message, then you have a problem.

The most common issues with delivery are:

Lacking enthusiasm – if you’re not interested in what you’re saying why would anyone else be?

Overly animated – trying too hard

Trying to imitate other speakers they have seen rather than being themselves

Speaking too fast

Speaking too loudly or too quietly

Excessive use of fillers – ums and ahs

The presenter talks to their PowerPoint slides instead of to the audience

Once we’ve dealt with those issues, we can then start looking at a range of basic tips that are within the abilities of the average person to help enhance your delivery and add impact to your well-structured message. These might include:

Using pauses for effect

Purposeful gestures

Varying the rate of speech and volume of your voice

Eye contact

Using visual aids, such as slides, for a purpose

These are simple things that can be very effective and that most people can master with a little practise – without being concerned with taking on a lot of performance techniques and trying to be someone they’re not.

So when it comes to effective public speaking, content and delivery are both important. However, so is the way you prioritise them…

Figure out what to say first, then concentrate on how best to say it as the best possible version of yourself – not like a bad actor trying to be someone else.

During my years as a member of Toastmasters International I reached a point where I needed a new challenge. That challenge became the International Speech Competition which involves making a seven-minute inspirational speech and proceeds through six stages with the final being the World Championship of Public Speaking.

My plan (ie. fantasy) was much the same as many of the 30 000 or so people who enter each year – become World Champion and find fame and fortune as a professional speaker. I didn’t become World Champion but what I learned in the process of trying has been invaluable.

Here are a few of those lessons – the big one is at the end:

1. I didn’t know what real fear of public speaking was before

Part of the reason many people have a fear of public speaking is they are aware that to some extent they are being judged by the audience. However for the most part audiences are looking for good points, not things to critique.

In a competition, there is no denying the confronting reality that the reason for you being there is to be judged on your performance. Not only by the official judges, but by everyone in the room.

The gut wrenching fear I felt at times was sickening but the feeling of achievement and confidence that came from getting through it was even more powerful and was one of the best personal growth experiences I could have had.

When you have half an hour to do a presentation or speech you can include a substantial amount of content – often way more than is needed. Trying to convey an inspirational message in just seven minutes means you have to learn to cull everything but the most relevant material and make that limited material have the most impact possible.

3. Stories rule.

The best way to do the above is with a great story.

4. You can rehearse too much

I am a firm believer in practising before a big speech or presentation. However there were times before competitions when I rehearsed so much that I had every word memorised and every single gesture and movement choreographed.

This actually raises one of the conflicts I have with what is advocated by some people in Toastmasters. Being ‘staged’ to this level was at times a very successful strategy for meeting the judging criteria in competitions as well as getting good evaluations for speeches in regular club meetings. However sometimes it comes across more like really bad acting than speaking. Be careful with this – acting and speaking are different things.

5. Most Importantly – What it really takes to be a ‘winner’ with your audience

In my most successful shot at the competition, I reached the stage where I was one win away from heading off to the USA to compete in the semi-finals.

That day I came up against the gentleman who would later go on to become the World Champion of Public Speaking that year. It was a day that I got ‘schooled’ big time in the art of competitive speaking. His speech was well written, brilliantly delivered, thoroughly entertaining, and deserving of sending him on to the next stage.

Myself, having invested very heavily emotionally in the experience, all I wanted to do in the break afterwards was retreat to some privacy and have some time for personal reflection. However, I couldn’t because of a constant flow of people coming up to tell me that even though I didn’t win, they enjoyed my speech the most out of the six contenders.

The message of my speech that day was not to let the things that keep us busy crowd out the most important things in our lives. I told a story about how I had been doing exactly that and as a result, I was missing out on my young daughter’s childhood. It resonated with a lot of people in the audience and a couple of them actually had tears in their eyes afterward when they thanked me for telling the story.

It wasn’t until I was tackling the 8-hour drive home the next day and got to thinking about what some of these people had said, that I fully appreciated the real lesson I had learned from the experience…

Fulfilling the judging criteria for a competition is one thing, but it’s how you make people feel that ultimately determines your value as a speaker.

Even well over a year later, people who were in the audience that day were stilling telling me how that speech had impacted them.

One day I will return to Toastmasters as I have unfinished business with that competition. But in the meantime, I know that saying something that matters is way more important than a perfectly polished performance.